Deuteronomy 2:37

Summary

The verse marks a boundary of the territory the Israelites did not enter: they did not draw near to the land of the Ammonites, the region along the wadi Jabbok, or the cities of the hill country — all in accordance with what Yehovah their God had commanded.

Key words

• rak ("only", H7535) — restrictive adverb that limits the boundary being described, isolating this single exception from the surrounding narrative of conquest.
• qaravta ("you drew near", H7126) — qal perfect, second person masculine singular, describing a completed action; paired with the negation lo' (H3808) it states a fact that did not happen.
• yad ("side of", H3027) — construct noun literally meaning "hand," here used idiomatically for the "side" or "bank" of the wadi, forming a construct chain with nachal Yabboq ("wadi of Jabbok", H5158/H2999).
• tzivah ("he had commanded", H6680) — piel perfect, third person masculine singular; the piel stem intensifies the verbal action, denoting a directive issued and completed.
• Elohei-nu ("our God", H0430 + H9025) — construct plural noun with first-person plural suffix, syntactically binding the divine name to the group ("Yehovah, God of us") rather than functioning as a separate object.

What the text says

The sentence is built around the restrictive adverb rak ("only") governing a prepositional phrase, 'el 'Eretz benei-'Ammon ("to the land of the sons of Ammon"), followed by the negated verb lo' qaravta ("you did not draw near"). The subject is second-person singular, addressing the collective "you" of Israel as a unit. After this main clause, three additional geographic elements are joined by the conjunction ve ("and"): "all the side of the wadi Jabbok," "the cities of the hill country," and "all that Yehovah our God had commanded." Grammatically, these three phrases are governed by the same negated verb qaravta, meaning none of them were approached either — the syntax lists cumulative exclusions rather than separate sentences.

The final clause, ve-khol 'asher-tzivah Yehovah Eloheinu ("and all that Yehovah our God had commanded"), uses the relative particle 'asher (H0834) to introduce what was commanded, with the piel perfect tzivah denoting a completed directive. The Hebrew verb itself means "commanded," without specifying content as prohibition or permission — that nuance is supplied only by context.

Differences between versions

The Hebrew verb tzivah (H6680) means "he commanded." The Vulgate renders this as prohibuit ("he forbade"), and both RV1909 ("había prohibido") and BSB ("had forbidden") follow this interpretive sense rather than the literal "commanded." The LXX preserves the neutral sense with ἐνετείλατο ("he commanded"), matching the Hebrew verb more closely, but adds the dative pronoun ἡμῖν ("to us"), specifying a recipient not explicitly stated in the Hebrew clause, where only the possessive suffix -nu ("our") on Elohei ties the deity to the speakers.